


The Victorian, The Bookstore and The Fireplace

by Kelkat9



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Adventure, F/M, Reunions, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-05
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-01-18 07:35:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1419816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kelkat9/pseuds/Kelkat9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When is a fireplace not just a fire place?  Or a house not just a house?  Adventure calls to Rose Tyler and where it leads is unexpected except, perhaps, in her dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Whoinwhoville back in 2013. I need to finish it. Somewhere on my hard drive is the second part partially written. Must find it one of these days. This is from my great tumblr redaction :)

Rose never grew accustomed to living a life where money was no longer an issue. Her mother, on the other hand, didn't hesitate to enjoy the luxuries money could buy. Pete liked to indulge her and she allowed it but, Jackie Tyler didn't let it consume her. She was still Rose's mum and the Jackie Tyler who cut hair out of her flat just to make ends meet. Jackie never forgot that or took this new life for granted. Rose smiled as she thought about how happy her mum was and she was happy for her. No one deserved this more than her mum.

Rose could appreciate the opportunities that Pete's wealth and position provided but it couldn't buy the one thing she yearned for with all her heart. Rose was in love and the object of her affections was separated from her in an event that would make even a Shakespearean tragedy look like a fluffy fairy tale. On the outside, Rose made nice for her mum's sake but internally, that little spark that lit her up was dimmed. Even though Pete was more than happy to indulge her, Rose stayed grounded. She attended parties or charity events with her mum but stayed out of the spotlight. She went to work for Torchwood every day, avoiding the posher aspects of wealthy life. Rose liked to walk to work instead of being driven. There was something real about putting one foot down in front of the other, feeling the Earth beneath her feet and immersing herself in the crowded London streets even if it wasn't really her London.

Each day, she walked through London on her way to work and each day, she passed a row of old Victorian homes tucked in amidst the growing metropolis of London. One home on the end of the row was quite decrepit and in disrepair, its formerly white and yellow paint faded and beginning to peel. Rose often paused in front of the house. There was just something about it that seemed off. She'd checked Torchwood and there didn't appear to be anything odd about it other than a few ghost stories passed around by the local children. It was owned by an eccentric millionaire who refused to tear it down, sell it or have it altered in any way. It sat amongst the hustle and bustle of the city, a monument to slower more refined time in the city's history. Still, something about tickled at the back of Rose's mind and she couldn't stop thinking about it.

It was on a cold, rainy morning that Rose's curiosity got the better of her. She was bundled up but the weather was turning worse just as she passed in front of the house. On impulse, she ducked up into the doorway to get out of the weather. She leaned back against the door and before she knew it, was tumbling inside. She sat up to find herself on a dark hard wood floor in the foyer. The weather was worsening so she shut the door and took a look around. The inside of home was nothing like the diminished appearance of its exterior. It was as if time hadn't passed here. There was no dust or dust covers. The walls were covered in a fine blue wall covering with a typical Victorian floral print. Brass wall sconces dripping with ornate cut crystals were affixed to the walls and glowed yellow in the dim light of the house. Portraits of Victorian men and women along with London landscapes all set in elaborate thick brass frames dotted the walls.

Rose called out "Hello?" There was no answer other than the sound of the wind and rain pelting against the thick pained glass windows.

Rose could almost hear the Doctor whispering in her mind "Go on then, explore, find out about this place. Come on, Rose Tyler! There's a mystery that needs solving." She never could turn him down or turn away from a good mystery and this was turning into one that was very enticing to her. Sure, she'd investigated some things for Torchwood but that was different. That was all business, with team members and reports and procedures. This was just her and a dark and mysterious house. Not to mention, exploring a place like this was exactly what she and the Doctor would have done together. Together, that word was a little painful for her but still, she just had to explore, wander off and get into trouble. She smiled at that thought. Thus, Rose Tyler decided it was worth risking arrest for trespass for a little Doctor worthy fun, not to mention, it was good to feel her heart beat like this, as it hadn't since Bad Wolf Bay and a tearful goodbye to the one she loved over a year ago.

She was enveloped in the slightly musty scent of another era as she explored the sitting room, study and hall and was amazed at the beautiful antique furniture and decorations. It wasn't just museum quality, it was like she really slipped back in time. Soon, she came to a cavernous living area, the walls lined with a rich dark wood with wooden mouldings and panels. An enormous fire place was set in one wall surrounded by the wood panelling and with a large carved mantelpiece prominently setting it up as the focal point of the room. A large rectangular mirror set in yet another thick, carved brass frame was affixed above the fireplace. As Rose gazed into the mirror, she looked at her image, a thin, pale, blonde girl in jeans, a long blue knit scarf and a hip length leather coat still dripping from the weather. She felt almost felt like Alice and wondered for a brief second if she had indeed wandered through the looking glass. She continued further into the room, noting a ticking sound from a clock on the mantel. It was the only noise in the house other than the continual pounding rain outside.

As she neared the centre of the room she paused and imagined what it would have been like with a roaring fire in that enormous fireplace and how it would have filled this room with warmth and the coziness it lacked as it was now. A chill passed through her and she shivered thinking of the cold rain outside. Or, perhaps it wasn't the cold but something else that was causing her skin to prickle. She should ring work to let them know she would be late but somehow using her mobile in this place seemed wrong. Instead, she continued to wander amongst the delicate Victorian furniture, trailing her fingers along the plush velvet cushions. She could almost see fine ladies in their long corseted gowns gliding about the room with gentlemen in posh waist coats and fitted suits. This was almost like she was time traveling again and she sighed. She loved those days of dressing up in costume and learning about history, even if she did end up running for her life.

The clock chimed and startled her. She walked up to it. It read five thirty which was obviously wrong. She was sure it would be closer to nine by this point. She looked at her watch only to notice it had stopped. That confirmed to her that something was very wrong with this house or that she was dreaming. She pinched herself hard but nothing happened. She looked back at the mirror and touched it. It seemed solid enough. The Doctor had once warned her a mirror was sometimes not just a mirror. A strange thought crossed her mind. Sometimes a fireplace wasn't just a fireplace either.

Rose took a step back and knelt down to peer into the fireplace, grabbing a fireplace poker. It certainly looked normal. She prodded the interior which seemed solid enough. No eighteenth century France courtesans or space ship with clockwork robots. She chastised herself for even thinking something so daft and besides it was a different universe. She stood up and ran a hand along the mantel and tapped the floor with the fireplace tool. She felt something click.

"Uh oh," she worried as she felt the hearth move. She found herself clinging to the fireplace as it shifted and turned and suddenly, she was not in a Victorian mansion anymore…


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow this only took what two years to finish LOL.

“Uh oh,” she worried as she felt the hearth move. She found herself clinging to the fireplace as it shifted and turned and suddenly, she was not in a Victorian mansion anymore… 

The air was thick with the musty scent of time and well-loved books. She looked behind her to find the fireplace now aged and covered with a thick layer of dust. In front of her, shelves upon shelves of bookcases rose up floor to ceiling. Filled with an assortment of paperbacks and hardcover books, some in nice neat stacks and others stacked haphazardly, it looked equally unkempt and abandoned. 

The area was lit by dodgy, old flickering fluorescent lights on the ceiling that emphasized this was a place long forgotten, an old hole in the wall bookstore; the kind of place one would find in older neighbourhoods, crammed with everything from Shakespeare to travel guides to the latest bodice ripper and maybe if you were lucky, a long forgotten first edition of Little Women tucked away in the stacks. The Doctor would have called this place a treasure trove of literature just waiting to be discovered.

Rose took a few tentative steps forward on the old wood plank floor, squeezing in between the narrow space between the shelves and even more books stacked on the floor. “Hello?” Rose called out but there was no response or any noise at all. She looked back one more time at the fireplace and sighed thinking she might as well explore while she was here and figure out where here was.

As she made her way forward, she paused to pick up an old worn copy of H.G. Wells, The Time Machine, that was sitting in the middle of the floor. She stared at the book and the irony of finding it on such a Doctor-like adventure, but she shrugged it off. “It’s just a book,” she murmured. “A coincidence.” 

Internally her instincts raged at her and how it was too much of a coincidence. She put the book on a shelf and something caught her eye. Several hard back books in aged shades of red, gold and tan taunted her with rather unique titles: Wolf Hall, Beowulf, Call of the Wild, The Journey Home, Little Red Riding Hood, Wolf Storm and The Big Bad Wolf. 

“I’m home,” she gasped and stumbled backwards knocking over a stack of paperbacks on the floor. She spun around, her breath coming fast as her heart pounded. With a steadying hand on one of the dusty shelves, she focused on calming herself and exploring. She turned once more toward the old fireplace to orient herself before making her way down the cramped aisle. 

With caution she walked down the cluttered path only to meet a dead-end or another aisle turning left or right. Each way looked like the last with books scattered on the floor or practically falling off the shelves. Around she went, stepping over books and twisting and turning as the dodgy overhead lights flickered. Rose huffed in annoyance as she found herself back at the fireplace.   
It wasn’t just a bookstore, it was a maze. She pinched the bridge of her nose, and took a few calming breaths.

“Right, so I’m in a book store maze in a different universe.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Blimey, that’s mental even for me.” She shook her head and looked at the books as if the answer to her dilemma lay in the yellowing pages around her.

“Am I really back in my universe or is it me just wishing it?” she asked herself. Another book caught her attention. “Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows.” She furrowed her brow. “But that’s not right.” She pulled out the tattered book and looked at the cover. “J.K. Rowling.” She smiled. “Not K.J. Worling. I am so in a different universe.” She paged through and saw the title was book seven in the series, the one the Doctor had taunted her about and didn’t exist in the parallel universe as K. J. Worling never finished the series. She held the book to her chest smiling. 

“Right universe but lost in the never-ending book store maze. Doesn’t it just figure.” Tapping her fingers on the book clutched to her chest, she thought through everything she’d done since arriving there. She pulled out her mobile but it wasn’t working and neither was her watch. Biting her lip, she guessed she’d walked around for maybe a half hour and never encountered any other person. In fact, everything seemed the same as when she arrived.

“Mazes,” she murmured to herself and looked down at the book again. “Well Harry, no golden mist or dark magic here so far. Just a bunch of books. The question is am I in the middle or is this the outer maze? She looked up at the annoying flickering lights and snorted. “Rubbish maze is what this is. The only thing worse would be…” She hesitated and looked up. “Not gonna say it. This is enough, thanks.” 

She walked forward toward her first option. She’d turned right the last time but after that she wasn’t sure and hadn’t paid attention. She felt an itch in between her shoulder blades. There was something she was forgetting. Gazing down at the book, her eyes lit on her scarf. It was an impulse buy, a mix of varying shades of blue yarn that reminded her of the TARDIS not unlike her bright blue coat. The TARDIS, mazes, the Doctor and…. a minotaur. She smiled as she remembered a story her leather clad Doctor once told her when they’d visited Crete the planet. Theseus and the Minotaur, Theseus used a ball of thread to navigate his way around the maze.

Rose pulled off her scarf. Quickly she pulled it apart, ripping out some of the stitches to pull at a loose thread which she tied to the end of one of the book cases. She spent what felt like an hour pulling apart the scarf until she had enough loose thread to move around a while. “This will have to do.”

She turned left this time and slowly made her way around the maze, doubling back more than once and pausing a few times to peer through book shelves trying to find a clue how to get out of this maze. The option to return to the fireplace remained but Rose wasn’t willing to admit defeat and not when she was sure this was her universe. It did occur to her that maybe this was just some mad prank by an interdimensional trickster. It’s not like she hadn’t encountered her share of sadistic aliens. 

Her mind wandered to one Torchwood case where they ran across a cute fluffy looking alien with big blue eyes and permanent grin that appeared harmless. Rose thought it looked like a furry big eyed troll doll from her universe. It gave her the creeps but everyone else seemed to like it. In fact, they’d escorted it back to Torchwood with Mickey scoffing at her “bad feelings” and teasing her about how she was always lecturing them about not every alien being evil.

Mickey was wrong. It all went pear shaped at Torchwood. The alien, calling itself the Wish Master, had generously offered up several wishes to the agents in its gratitude for being given sanctuary. Rose snorted at that. 

Oh it granted wishes just not exactly as anticipated. Wishes for money involved someone dying and leaving another person money or someone’s spouse died in a car accident with massive insurance proceeds being paid to the wisher. Or someone wishing for love received an obsessive admirer. Another person wished for his grandmother to survive an illness. She did but she never recovered. She just went on living and suffering. The list went on and left Torchwood in chaos until Rose and Pete put a stop to it.

She hadn’t wanted to kill it but it was turning their people against them. Rose still had a scar from a bullet wound thanks to one of her manipulated co-workers. In the end, she and Pete cornered it in one of the labs with Mickey at its mercy. One look in Mickey’s eyes and Rose understood the Doctor and how easy it was to give no second chances. She’d grabbed a Bunsen Burner and aimed it at their unfriendly Wish Master who cackled and taunted her. Pete splashed him with an acetone mixture and rose turned the flame full on and tossed it at the creature.

The screams it made haunted Rose’s nightmares but not as much as the looks on the faces of the people she worked with. Mickey survived with minor burns. No one at Torchwood forgot what happened. New policies and protocols were enacted and no one ever questioned Rose’s instincts again.

That memory was vivid enough that Rose hesitated, worrying about being trapped in some fantasy of her own making. Was any of this even real? Should she just go back to her life, her Mum, little brother, Pete and friends at Torchwood?

Something in the air changed. There was a buzzing sound. Her breath caught and she focused on the noise. Tears wet her eyes at its familiarity. It was a sound she longed to hear and feared she never would again. “Doctor,” she whispered and began unwinding more yarn as she moved quickly down the aisles, following the sound until she hit yet another dead end.

She heard what sounded like metal smacked against skin and then alien cursing. “Come on, come on, get it right. I knew I should have replaced the helix trichedron crystal.” The buzz sounded again.

“Doctor!” Rose shouted into the book case and began tugging at books and tossing them on the floor. “Doctor! It’s me!”

“What?” a familiar male voice asked. “Who’s me? And where are you?”

Rose felt a tear fall down her face. “It’s Rose but I can’t get through to you. This book store, it’s a maze and I’m stuck. Please help me!”

There was no response and the buzzing stopped.

“Doctor? Doctor don’t go, please! It’s really me!”

“I don’t know who you are what you’re playing at but the person you’re impersonating can’t be here. And hearing you use her voice, stealing her voice, isn’t going to make me help you with whatever you want. Now I’m going to try to be very calm in her memory and ask again, who are you?”

Rose sighed and thumped her head on the edge of the book shelf. “It’s Rose. It’s really me. I was in the parallel universe when I sort of ended up in this weird old Victorian house with a fireplace and you know how those go.” She sighed. “I was just having a look around and next thing I know the fireplace moved and I was here in this dodgy maze of a bookstore and then I heard you.”

“Rose Tyler is locked in a parallel world, one where the walls are sealed. She can’t be here,” he said in a steely voice.

“Yeah, well she is, thanks! And she is getting annoyed and doesn’t want to spend eternity in this place even though I doubt I’d be bored. It’s not like I wouldn’t have reading material but I could use a bite to eat. Investigating dimensionally unstable houses and crossing over to another universe makes one a bit peckish.”

“Prove you’re really her. And I warn you, if I even think you’re toying with me, you will wish you were in a parallel world.”

“No I really wouldn’t. Been there, lived it, lost the love of my life and had to say goodbye to him on a frigid beach. Not too keen on repeating it.”

She didn’t hear anything, not even his breathing. She groaned. “Fine! We met in the basement at Henrik’s. First word you said to me was Run. First meal, fish and chips and I had to pay. First trip was to see the Earth burn, or that’s not right. Technically, first trip was when the TARDIS moved to the London Eye. Ummmm oh! First time we met Jack, London, the blitz, gas mask kid! Then I lost you after the Game Station, you changed yourself and I missed other you but then I worked things out. You wore Howard’s jim jams and had Christmas dinner with my Mum. First time you two didn’t shout at each other. Oh, then there was Queen Victoria and the um the…” she snapped her fingers racking he brain to think of the name. “Lupine Wavey hema something! That’s what started everything, created Torchwood and separated us. Doctor, it’s me!” She emphasized.

“Rose,” he said softly. “But this can’t be. You can’t be here,” he said, his voice cracking. “The walls of the universe…”

“I don’t care!” she shouted and then exhaled a shaky breath. “I am here. I don’t know how or why but I am and so are you. It can’t be an accident. Please, Doctor. I can’t see you. I need to see you.” Her voice cracked and she leaned her head against some books on the shelf.

“Rose Tyler.”

“Yeah, that’s me,” she said in a teary voice.

“I need to see you too. Butttttt,” he drew out. “You see we’re sort of stuck in an artificially created pocket universe that the TARDIS…” He stopped talking.

“Doctor, are you still there? What do you mean pocket universe and what did the TARDIS do?”

“That gorgeous and completely brilliant blue box!” he shouted. “Oh but she’s clever and obstinate! Of course! It all makes sense now. I am getting old, old and daft!”

“Doctor, what’s going on?” Rose said firmly, knowing she needed to get him back on track or she could be listening to a babble for the next week.

“The TARDIS was in the parallel universe, Pete’s World.” He giggled and Rose rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, we fell through a hole and she nearly died.”

“Oh it was more than that! I just didn’t see it. Falling into the other universe would have made her stutter and choke a bit, get a spot of indigestion but it shouldn’t have drained all her reserves the way it did. Remember, I had to give her a bit of a jump start with a bit the old Time Lord life force.”

Rose bit her lip and worried. “Yeah and she had to rest. We ended up stopping the Cybers.”

“Yes! That was all part of it! It had to happen. We had to be there, make that connection because of Torchwood. But it was more than that. She did so much more than just fall and make sure we were in the right place at the right time.”

Rose raised her head and stared at the books in front of her. “She created a back door. The old Victorian house. I looked it up and it was owned by some old millionaire who wouldn’t sell, Ian Chesterton.” The Doctor laughed in response.

Rose sighed. “Torchwood looked into it but it was just a normal house owned by a strange bloke. Course the inside was a bit different. It looked out of time on the inside. My watch stopped and then there’s the dodgy fireplace.”

“Of course!” the Doctor said with enthusiasm. “She’s clever our old girl.”

Rose’s brow furrowed. “The TARDIS did all this, made up some millionaire to keep up a house that’s not really a house? That’s it yeah? It’s like you said, a back door? Is it safe? Can we keep using it?”

He quieted. “It’s temporary. She doesn’t have the power to keep it up. She left some of herself behind in that universe to keep it going but it won’t last forever. If you stay, you won’t be able to return, Rose. You’ll be separated from your family. You still have time to get back to the fireplace and return to that universe.”

Rose rubbed at her eyes. Gain the Doctor, lose her family or keep her family and lose the Doctor. A gut wrenching pain ripped through her. It wasn’t fair. Tears poured down her face as her body shook with the choice before her. it was the same choice she was prepared to make on the beach over a year ago but now she’d set down roots even when she didn’t mean to. She loved her mum, her brother and Pete; and she had friends at Torchwood. But on the other hand was the Doctor, and how could she walk away from him?

“Rose, you don’t have to stay with me. I’ll…be all right. Been on my own for a while. You have a family that loves you. I would never ask you to walk away from them.”

She nodded her head even though he couldn’t see her. “My mobile’s dead,” she said in a hoarse voice. “Can’t call home.”

“It was drained the moment you touched the portal. The energy readings are already low and fading fast. There may not be much time. You should,” he paused and she visualized his brown eyes filled with pain as he swallowed hard. “You should go now.”

Mascara running down her face she inhaled and looked up at the flickering lights. “No, Doctor.”

“What do you mean no?” he said, his voice hard and angry. “Do you understand what you’re leaving behind? A family Rose! People who know and love you and will always stand by you. I don’t have that and never will.”

“Yeah you will ‘cos you have me. And my mum, she always knew. She knew on that beach I was there for you, was ready to leave and she hated it. Oh she hated it but she knew I loved you and how important that was. If someone had given her a choice, to go back to Dad and leave her life behind, she’d have done it. And you know why? ‘Cos love is special and you don’t get many chances at it and when you find that one person who’s right, who makes you stronger, better and feel a part of them in a good way, you don’t let go. I love my family but this is my chance and I’m not letting go. This is my magna clamp and this time, I’m not letting go.”

“Rose.” His voice shook with emotion.

“We’ll put a message in the fireplace with my mobile and send it back through. They’ll find it and she’ll know. It’s not like she’s not expecting me to disappear one day. We talked about it, her and me.”

“Rose, please. I can’t ask you to do this.”

“I know.” She smiled through her tears. “I’m not asking you to. This is my choice, me making this decision, not you.”

She heard books being torn off the shelf and thumping onto the floor. Rose did the same, digging through paperbacks and hardbacks alike. Curses about dimensionally transcendental book stores from hell flew off his lips. Rose couldn’t help but giggle as the books piled up around her feet. Finally, after an endless amount of books stacked up around her she tugged on one particular thick black leather bound book of Shakespeare only to feel it tugged in the other direction. She let go and found herself gazing at brown eyes she had dreamed about almost every night since she’d been trapped in the parallel universe. 

“Hello,” he breathed.

“Hello, Doctor,” she said and a huge smile lit her face.

“Rose Tyler, I found you behind Shakespeare. Bit of scamp and a flirt, the Bard. He’d approve!”

Rose reached her hand through until she felt the familiar caress of his long lean fingers intertwining with her own. 

“Doctor, how long do we got in this bookstore before…” She trailed off and looked at the trail of yarn before looking back at him. “Is it like the fireplace?”

His eyes darkened and he gripped her hand. “I’ll find you before that happens.”

“Can we, I dunno, just dig our way out? Should I go back to the fireplace and send my message back through?”

“It would take up too much energy and the whole thing could collapse in on us. Best we find our way to each other and back to the TARDIS first.”

Rose nodded. “And you have a plan?”

He grinned manically at her. “I always have a plan!”

She arched a brow at him. “Yeah right, I remember that so well. And that’s why I ruined so many trainers running away through swamps and marshes not to mention dangling over that pit of acid on Drukasoka something.”

“Drukosodalian and that wasn’t my fault!”

Rose giggled at the offended look on his face which seemed to spur on his own grin. “Don’t move! I’ll have you out of here in two shakes of draconia sniggle!”

She reluctantly let go of his hand and listened to the slap of trainers on the floor, a few thumps of books and more cursing. She pulled some scraps of paper out of her handbag and stared at the crumpled pieces of paper. How did one say goodbye to so many people you loved and who loved you. It was true that Jackie expected this to happen but actually putting pen to paper and making it real and permanent was a different matter.

Rose felt a burning in her chest as her emotions welled up. The paper blurred before her as she held the pen in a death grip. She thought about the last dinner she’d had with her family, how her mother complained about her hairdresser not doing a good enough job; gossiping about some socialite caught cheating on her husband and how everyone was expecting it. Pete had nodded pretending to ignore the conversation but affectionate glances were aimed at her. This was his second chance and he wasn’t missing a moment of anything even the pointless gossip. Rose watched them, could see their connection even when they rowed. There was love reflected in his eyes along with a determination to not lose this chance with this Jackie. Rose would never forget how he cried the day Tony was born and how he looked at her mum. 

Even her relationship with him, which had not been easy in the beginning, had grown into something special. He understood the loss she endured. Grief, pain and learning to start over bonded them in a way that transcended a simple father-daughter relationship. The pain of that loss was just as sharp as losing her mother and her little brother. 

She squeezed her eyes shut as she thought about the little ginger haired boy she’d never see grow into a man. Before the beach, she had written so many letters to her family and Mickey. There had been one for her then unborn brother filled with advice about everything from school, growing up, loving his parents, not being afraid to follow his heart and to follow his dreams. She’d included stories from her own life, growing up on the estate, listing her mistakes and successes and all about her travels with the Doctor. It was the only legacy she had to give to him now but it hurt. It hurt that she couldn’t tell him in person and she had to rely on hope that he would one day understand.

This was not a note one could write logically or with any plan. She had to feel her way through this and thus her first words scrawled onto the page were I love you. There was nothing more important than making sure all those she loved knew that. After that it was a torrent of her feelings, gratitude, apologies, reminders of how important they all were and that she wanted them to live and be happy. She ended it with a promise that if there was ever a way to let them know more about her life, she would send it; and that she was following her heart and love, a love that paralleled what she felt for them and hoped it would lead to as much happiness as Pete and Jackie found with each other.

She didn’t hear the Doctor right away. It was his scent that captured her attention, that special essence of something spicy mixed with tea and what she liked to think was time. She saw him leaning against a book shelf at the end of the aisle dressed in a blue pinstripe suit with red trainers. 

“You’re here.” She said, holding the scraps of paper in her hand.

“Yes and you’re, well you’re here too,” he said in a soft voice laced with disbelief.

She took a step toward him and suddenly he sprinted forward sweeping her into his arms and wrapping his arms around her lifting her off the floor murmuring her name over and over again. She held him just as tightly. He swung her back and forth, her legs kicking in the air knocking over books precariously balanced on shelves which fell to the floor with a thud. When he set her down, he kept hold of her and just grinned like the mad alien he was.

He reached over and tucked her hair behind her ears and wiped a few stray tears away. “Do you still want?”

She nodded her head. “Walk with me?”

He laced his fingers with hers and they followed her trail of yarn with him babbling on how clever she was and telling her a tale about a particularly long scarf he once had and how many times it helped him out of a jam. He then began a new ramble about jam and how the galley on the TARDIS was running short.

They reached the fireplace and he became silent. He looked at her nervously.

She faced him trembling slightly. “I seem to recall on a really cold beach, you were gonna say something to me but didn’t finish. I could really…” She hitched her breath in. “That is it would be nice to hear you finish that sentence right about now.”

He rested a hand on her shoulder and leaned into her ear and whispered words she had only dreamed of hearing, of love, forever and his hearts. She gazed into his eyes finding emotions reflected their depths that filled her with a warmth and a certainty that she was making the right decision. She reached up and yanked him by the lapels until she felt the press of his lips and the slide of his tongue against her own. There was no mistaking this, the taste of love curling on her tongue and the feel of him wrapped around her.

They parted reluctantly as the sonic buzzed in his pocket.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She nodded and placed the notes on the mantel. She pulled out her mobile and the Doctor reached for it. He aimed his sonic at it and placed it on the mantel. 

“What?” Rose asked.

“A present. I loaded it with a few handy things just in case this ever happens again and they need to reach us. I also may have broken a few laws of time in giving Pete a few hints on what might come. Oops.”

Rose wrapped her arms around him and held onto him as he activated the fireplace. She squeezed her eyes shut as she heard it woosh as it turned back to her universe. 

“We have to go,” he murmured into her hair. 

She stared at the old dusty fireplace one more time before letting out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding. Hand in hand they walked through the labyrinth of books. The lights flickered off.

“Uh Rose?’

“Run?” she asked with a slight smile.

He grinned at her. “Run!”

And they did winding their way through a disintegrating bookstore, back to his magical blue box and disappearing onto their next adventure.


End file.
